New England Hot Sauce Festival Is Coming In Hot This Weekend
If you enjoy a little spice in your bite then this is your event. The New England Hot Sauce Festival is happening this Saturday (July 30) 11a-5p at Smuttynose Brewery in Hampton, NH. Organizer Gabe DiSaverio (also owner of award-winning The Spicy Shark hot sauce company) says there’s fun to be had for everyone – young or old, hothead or not.
There will be 25 different hot sauce vendors, 7 food trucks, artists, bouncy houses, face painting, award winning beer from Smuttynose, and a couple different types of eating competitions – a few for locals and one world record-breaking attempt.
For the locals, you can enter (or just kick back and watch) the jalapeno eating contest, the super hot pepper eating contest, and the hot wing eating contest.
Then there’s Mike Jack (affectionately known as Mike Jack Eats Heat) who will be coming in from Canada to attempt to beat the World Record for Most Carolina Reaper Peppers Ever Eaten. To break the record he’ll have to mow down 161 Carolina Reaper Peppers. Yow.
The festival is bringing in the best peppers for Mike’s World Record attempt, flying the peppers in from Ed Curry of Puckerbutt Pepper Company in South Carolina. Ed is the creator of the Carolina Reaper pepper and a close friend of the New England Hot Sauce Festival.
When asked if he enjoys the ultra-popular online show ‘Hot Ones’ where famous people are interviewed while trying to suck down chicken wings bathed in hot sauce at increasingly spicy intervals, organizer Gabe DiSaverio says, “Hot Ones has been awesome for craft hot sauce in general. And what’s been really cool is the number of different craft hot sauce companies that they put on it and how much attention it’s drawn to people to say ‘oh my God these seem really delicious’ or ‘these seem really cool’ or I’ve never heard of that company or ‘oh my God that company is in the state I live in.’ Where craft beer was 15 years ago kind of where hot sauce is now.”
So come for the hot and stay for the cool 80’s music that will be cranking throughout.
Buy tickets in advance for $10 at newenglandhotsaucefest.com – or $15 at the door until they sell out.
Proceeds support two great ocean-focused non-profits – Blue Ocean Society and the Seaside Science Center.
And while we’re talking road trippin’ for a food fest, how about road trippin’ for these insanely delish dawgs in New England?:
Hot Dogs Worth Traveling For In New England
